[auban]

so, many of you have seen the microscope pics i posted earlier. something i want to do is breed wild type shrimp and, with the aid of my microscope and a few mutagenesis techniques, develop some new strains. since i know a few methods that produce destructive mutations, i should be able to breed something observable. ill only be keeping the shrimp that throw observable mutations on pigments.

before everyone jumps down my throat for using mutagenesis, you should keep in mind that inbreeding does the exact same thing over longer periods of time.


so what would be the easiest to start with? which wild type shrimp has the most potential and is easiest to breed? i want to map the mutations out as i go along.

 

[GeToChKn]

http://www.planetinverts.com/malaya_shrimp.html

They breed easy, take a wide range of water, seem to come in all colors but don't breed true, so this may be the perfect shrimp for experments.

Look at Soothing's http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=211682

You can see a wide variety of color and people have tried to breed certain colors but still seem to get random colors but looking at the smaller pigments and finding two with closer might help going along Rafal's line of thinking of them.

 

[auban]

thanks! they do seem like a perfect shrimp to work with. i was looking for wild type neocardinias, but it seems that pretty much everything available has been bred for something...

the malaya shrimp look like they have some real potential. if selectively breeding them is as complex as i think it is(ie, each mutation is recessive and there are multiple mutations needed to produce a color) then using a microscope and examining them closely may be the quickest way to get something to breed true.

i wonder how many times a shrimp has popped up that passes its mutation down, but some other pigment obscures it so that it looks like the mutation disappeared...
another thing i could do is get some other type of neo and breed them to my cherry shrimp.

red plus yellow equals brown right? i want to know why.

 

[chibikaie]

You can get wild type neos ... I picked up 10 in NYC a few months ago. Very hardy, prolific breeders. It can take some hunting, though.

 

[nightshadebel]

you could also try MINAMI SHRIMP. they come in lots of colors and breed like mad.

 

[auban]

ill look into those too. if i get seriously involved in breeding shrimp, ill end up wanting several different types to work with. i would go for wild neos, but they are so darned hard to find! even the "wild types" have usually been selectively bred to some extent, so i would have no idea how they compare to wild types. i would prefer a shrimp for which there is no known mutations.